


Before the Chance Is Gone

by bewareofitalics



Category: The Fantasticks - Schmidt/Jones
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27031474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewareofitalics/pseuds/bewareofitalics
Summary: You have been telling the story for decades, in dozens of countries, to millions of people. This time, you change it.
Kudos: 1





	Before the Chance Is Gone

The others never remember. They know they are being watched, of course, know they have certain words to say, but the words flow from their hearts to their mouths without passing their memories. Each time, they love and laugh and ache as if the story has never happened before. For them, it never has.

(Perhaps the Mute remembers. It’s hard to tell.)

You never forget. You have been telling the story for decades, in dozens of countries, to millions of people. You are a fractured being, pulled this way and that by thousands of stagings. You dress in black. (Unless you don’t.) You twirl your cape. (If you have one.) You flick infinite scarves in infinite shades of red. (Or not.) The others swirl around you like the ever-present confetti, a mass of constantly shifting shapes and colors and sounds. You always recognize them. You always betray them. It always hurts.

Another betrayal is at hand. The Girl has her face to you, eyes closed, hopeful, trusting. The stagings all agree: this is when you kiss her upon the eyes. Sometimes you take a moment to look at her, sometimes you linger with your lips close to hers, but always, always, you follow the script. You give her not the kiss she asks for, but the one from the secret dreams that she shares only with the audience. (And you.)

Looking at her now, you think that if you steal her dreams one more time, you’ll break apart. That the ties binding the Narrator to the Bandit in all their variations will snap, leaving nothing of you behind. The story must go on, of course, but must it be at the expense of the storyteller?

So you stall. You gather your selves from across countries, across continents. The audience, usually a blur of bodies and seating arrangements, snaps into focus. The seats are few and some are empty, but even so, it’s overwhelming to suddenly see the people seeing you. _Watching_ you. Waiting for you to kiss the Girl.

You always were a crowd-pleaser.

You cup the Girl’s face with hands that feel more solid than ever before. You can feel the warm flush in her cheeks, the way she trembles when you brush aside a strand of hair. The way her breath mingles with yours as you lean closer.

You kiss her lips. Her eyes fly open.

“What is it?” you ask.

“At last! I have been kissed…” The Girl stops, lets the end of her line hang silently between you.

You could still return to the script. You’ve done it before, guiding the story through technical mishaps, dropped lines, latecomers. But now, you simply wait.

“I have been kissed…” There is something wild in the Girl’s eyes – her blue gray hazel green brown amber eyes in a face framed by golden chestnut fiery raven hair that is loose and braided and straight and curly and long and short all at once. With a flickering hand, she clutches her mother’s necklace. (Her fancy. Her pride.) And she crystalizes.

Golden hair, eyes almost mauve. Faint freckles under smeared powder. She’s pretty, of course. She’s always pretty. But young, so young. After all these years, all those faces, sometimes you forget what sixteen really means. No wonder she wants some adventure before she settles down. She deserves to see a sun and moon that aren’t cardboard, feel rain and snow that aren’t paper. Just once.

And so, you realize, do you.

You – not the dashing Bandit now, or even the wise Narrator, but _you_ – hold out your hand. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“To the world.”

Old words tumble from the Girl’s lips with a new excitement, untouched by the usual foreboding. “It’s really like that? The world is like you say?”

You laugh. “I don’t know.”

The Girl smiles and takes your hand, and you help her down from the chair that was a tree. She hesitates before descending all the way. “Will we come back?”

“Do you want to?” you ask.

“I don’t know.” The Girl glances in the direction of the Boy’s last exit. “Yes.”

Ah, the Boy. It’s too late to ease his pain this time, but you make a note for the next performance. “Then we will.”

“Very well,” says the Girl, with an air of grandeur. She hops down to the stage, then drops your hand and looks at you expectantly.

You smile. “I believe another intermission is called for, don’t you?”

“That would be charming.”

As one, you and the Girl turn to the audience. You bow extravagantly, theatrically, while she sinks into a magnificent curtsy. “Ladies and gentlemen,” you say, “this time you must hold a pose. The Boy has gone, the Girl now goes. And so, adieu.”

“Au revoir,” adds the Girl.

“Et cetera,” you finish, and snap your fingers. The lights go out. You offer your arm and the Girl takes it, her smile and necklace shining in the darkness.

You will have to hurt the Girl again, you know. Kiss her eyes, steal her necklace. Let her find her way back to the Boy before their memories are written over like footprints in the snow. But maybe, just maybe, something of this will remain. Some sense that life beyond her father’s wall isn’t always cruel. And maybe you will be able to tell her story without bitterness.

With hope in your heart, you exit the stage and enter the world.


End file.
